A Time to Remember
by Vinceypoo
Summary: Showing the adventure of the Chuunin exams, primarily OC cast. Leading up to huge action, romance and angst. Rated M for moderate language and violence. Another Collaborative project.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

Another idyllic day in the Hidden Village of Leaf. More than five decades after the Hidden Village of Sand's deceitful attack on Konoha, it was hard to believe that the village had once almost been destroyed. This generation of ninja had not faced even remotely as dire a circumstance as the ones that had befallen their current Hokage in his days as a mere student. Slouched in his seat at the back of the ninja academy classroom, a fiery-headed genin tipped his chair back and wished idly for that kind of excitement again. With his chalk-white skin, black tongue, needle-sharp teeth, and unsettlingly large irises, Inuzuka Kumamori would have stood out in Konoha even without his blood red hair. Still, he did his best to avoid his teachers' notice.

Not even bothering to stifle a huge yawn, Kuma meticulously selected another projectile from the impressive arsenal he'd been stockpiling all year. He waited until Jiro-sensei's attention was on the other side of the class before he took careful aim at the mass of slender purple braids of the girl sitting a few tiers down from him and flicked the bitten-off eraser tip, hard. Kuma snickered as the eraser lodged in the girl's hair, then pretended to be absorbed in his activity book when she turned her head to level a lethal glare in his direction.

Her lips pressed in a tight line, Samura Kaori rolled her eyes and swung back around to face the front of the room, giving her hair an impatient toss to shake the latest projectile loose. It joined the other eraser tips, spitballs, and buttons already scattered on the floor. She jotted a couple quick notes down as Jiro-sensei continued to go over the details of the Chuunin Exam.

"…based on your individual talents and potential compatibility. Some of your parents might remember the days when you would have already been put into three-person squads. This is not so today because it was decided that such premature placement often had undesirable results. You have been allowed to develop your particular talents individually and learn to overcome difficult tasks on your own. Now you will all need to learn how to work as teams. Don't forget: you will not be able to pass this exam by yourself! From tomorrow on, it will be all for one and one for all. Got it?" Running his fingers through the hedgehog spikes of his hair, he caught Kuma taking aim again in the corner of his eye. "And Inuzuka, if you throw one more object at Samura's head, you and your new teammates will have to compensate for your handicap."

Ear tips burning, Kuma raised his chin, defiantly meeting his teacher's gaze. "What handicap?"

"The one I'll give you when I glue all of your fingers together. Stop going out of your way to be a pest and express your true feelings like a real man. Yes, Kaori-chan?"

Doing her best to ignore the amused buzz from her classmates, Kaori lowered her hand. "Sir, if our teams don't work out, will we get reassigned?"

"Good question. Better answer: no. You have all been carefully watched these past couple years by various jounin—and Hokage-sama himself. They took every single one of your abilities and personality traits into consideration before arranging these teams. They'll work out as long as you all put forth the effort to get along, because each group is specifically designed to fuse into a perfect, fluid unit."

"Don't worry, Kaori-chan; I'll fuse with your unit," Kuma piped up. His classmates groaned, though his comment elicited one or two uneasy laughs. Kaori's gold eyes narrowed, and the pencil snapped in her hand. The laughter stopped abruptly. The look she shot Kuma over her shoulder almost melted the _hitai-ate_ draped around his neck. He only grinned wider.

Whatever intervention Jiro might have had to impose was cut short by the sound of the end-of-the-day bell. Raising his voice to be heard over the shuffling of books and pencils and the slamming of desk lids, he called, "Remember, you're going to be assigned your teams first thing tomorrow, so don't be late! Inuzuka!" He caught the genin by the elbow as he raced for the door. "Not so fast. I want a word with you." His grip tightened when Kuma tried to wriggle free.

Kuma heaved a defeated sigh, shuffling his feet impatiently. "Yeah, sensei?"

"I'm going to give you some valuable advice, Kuma, so listen to me for once: your life would run a lot smoother if you just stopped being a pain in the neck." Jiro rubbed the wide scar that cut across the bridge of his nose and almost completely bisected his face. "These kids are your neighbors, your classmates, your peers, and one day you're going to have to rely on them to get your obnoxious ass out of a tight pinch. Maybe you ought to think about not giving them a reason to hesitate in that crucial moment when every second counts."

"Like it'll matter," Kuma muttered.

Jiro cocked his head. "What was that?"

"They all see me as some freak of nature. Given the chance, I'm sure they'd _love_ to let my obnoxious ass fry and blame it on the odds. 'Something like that should never have been born—it's better for everyone that he's dead, right?'" Turning away, Kuma yanked his arm out of Jiro's grip and added flatly, "Thanks for the advice, sensei." Biting back a frustrated sigh, Jiro watched his student run out of the room.

Leaning against the tree in the school yard, Samura Eiri gazed up at the two short pieces of frayed rope knotted around the lowest limb. The story went that there had been a swing hanging from that limb once, but Uzumaki-sama had cut it down soon after receiving his title. When pressed, Rokudaime Hokage only replied that his decision had been safety-based, but no one had replaced the swing with a new one.

"Eiri-nii-chan!"

Smiling, Eiri returned his foster-sister's wave and fell in step with her when she drew alongside him. He could detect a sour note behind the younger genin's placid expression. "Is everything all right, Kaori-chan? You look a little upset."

Her face clouding, Kaori scowled. "It's just that idiot Kumamori again. He's so annoying."

"He gets teased so often for being different, he's probably overcompensating by acting out," Eiri said gently.

She tossed her hair, still frowning. "If he didn't work so hard at being a brat, nobody would even care about the way he looks."

Frankly, Eiri suspected that the young Inuzuka had been nursing a crush on Kaori for the past three years, but he knew if he mentioned it, his foster-sister would get flustered.

"What is it?" Kaori asked suspiciously, eyeing him.

"Hmm?"

"You've got that 'I have a secret, neener neener neener' look on your face again."

"Does it really look like I'm thinking 'neener neener neener'?" Eiri asked with exaggerated concern. He caught sight of Jiro exiting the building and hesitated. "Are you playing shougi with Nara-san today?"

"It's Wednesday, isn't it?"

"Then I'll meet you back at the house. I want to talk to your teacher about something."

Kaori slanted him a look. "I hope 'something' isn't your super secret code word for 'Samura Kaori's progress in class.'"

Eiri had to laugh. "It isn't. Now go on. Good luck with your game!"

"Luck has nothing to do with it, and it isn't a game!" Kaori said heatedly. Eiri grinned. He had touched on one of the only topics that captured Kaori's whole-hearted interest. "It's my eternal battle of wits against Old Man Shikamaru, and it's deadly serious." She started walking backward to the Nara household, still railing at Eiri about strategy, pride, honor, and upholding the Samura name.

Waving, Eiri waited until she disappeared around the corner before turning back to the school and found Jiro standing patiently by the tree.

"You were waiting for me, Eiri-kun?" the chuunin asked.

Tucking a lock of shoulder-length white hair behind his ear, Eiri nodded, lilac eyes fixed on a point just past Jiro's left ear. "I wanted to ask you—the Chuunin Exam—do you think I should take it?"

"Why shouldn't you? Have you spoken to Ayama-sensei?"

"Yes, but I… She told me I should. But I feel like—like it would be wrong, like I'm… cheating, somehow."

The corner of Jiro's lips twitched. "Has it ever occurred to you that maybe you've already taken the Chuunin Exam in your former life?"

Eiri looked up, startled. Since the day Samura Takeshi had found Eiri half-dead and unconscious on a seldom-used trail leading to Konoha Village, Eiri had not been able to recall a single memory from his life before waking in the hospital. Konoha's famed blacksmith and primary manufacturer of the village ninjas' _hitai-ate_ had taken Eiri under his wing, apprenticing him as a metalworker until he realized Eiri's true potential. It was only when Eiri was helping the then twelve-year-old Kaori practice for her final exam at the ninja academy that he displayed an impressive aptitude for ninjutsu. He had been enrolled the next week, and had raced through almost a decade's worth of instruction and training in under three years, lauded by his teachers as a genius-class ninja. As none of the other Hidden Villages had reported a missing student, everyone in Konoha had simply attributed Eiri's talent to natural ability. But if he _had_ gone through all of this training before (and at the age of somewhere around 18, he was certainly old enough)…

"Wouldn't I have remembered _something_?"

"Maybe. Maybe not. It would make sense, though, wouldn't it? Or maybe you really are a genius. Either way, there's no reason why you shouldn't go through with the Exam. No one would begrudge you the rank of chuunin. Oh, and Eiri-kun?"

"Yes?"

Jiro pretended to concern himself with rubbing a stain off the immaculate metal plate of the _hitai-ate_ tied around his upper arm. "You never did explain to me why you asked to be transferred from my class last year."

Inspecting the grass at his feet, Eiri murmured, "My placement there… complicated things."

"Was it because your—I'm up here, Eiri," he said firmly, tilting his former student's chin up so that he was forced to make eye contact. "Because your sister was in the same class?"

Eiri cleared his throat nervously. "I worried that having to compete all the time in school might have a negative effect on our relationship at home."

Searching the younger man's eyes before he released him, Jiro grinned. "Still feeding me the same line of bull." He clapped a hand on the genin's shoulder. "When you pass the exam, Eiri-kun, you'll tell me the real reason, won't you? After all, you'll be a chuunin then, and won't have to worry about the repercussions of telling a teacher what you really think about him."

Clearly relieved to have been let off the hook, however temporarily, Eiri nodded. "If I pass, I'll treat both you and Ayama-sensei to dinner. I would never have made it this far without the two of you."

"Ayama-sensei's leaving on a mission for the Hidden Village of Cloud in a few days. It may just be you and me." Squeezing Eiri's shoulder before letting his hand drop, Jiro hooked his thumbs in his pockets and rocked back on his heels. "I like shellfish, by the way."

Eiri smiled. "I'll start asking around for the best seafood restaurant in Konoha," he said, bowed quickly, and started walking home.

"It's a date, then," Jiro called after him, and grinned again when Eiri stumbled.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

Inuzuka Miki heard her foster-son enter and was not pleased. "Here comes the irresponsible little brat now," she muttered under her breath to the little red-eared white dog at her feet. She watched from the shadows as a few brilliant red spikes of hair poked through the doorway, waiting in silence as her foster-son glanced cautiously about. Spotting no one, he inched over the threshold, eased the door shut behind him, and tiptoed toward the stairs. "KUMAMORI!" she roared. "I want a word with you!"

With a shout of alarm, Kuma levitated a foot into the air, then hit the floor running, making a mad dash for his bedroom. "You'll have to get in line!" he retorted over his shoulder. If only he could get upstairs—a locked door between him and his foster-mother would buy him some time…

Leaping gazelle-like over the sofa, her own buff-colored dog flying over the stick of furniture in tandem with its human, Miki's hands disappeared into the voluminous sleeves of the opposite arms. She let fly half a dozen shuriken and kunai by the time she landed; each weapon biting into a separate stair in ascending order, the last one pinned the tattered leg of Kuma's pants to the floor. His foster-mother was halfway up the stairs by the time Kuma tore his leg free. Throwing himself sideways, Kuma rolled over the banister, dropped into a crouch, and hurtled toward the open window—only to trip over the red-eared white dog and fall flat on his face.

"KUMAMORI." Having vaulted the banister as well, Miki stood over him, eyes ablaze, hands on hips, one foot planted firmly on the small of his back. "You left poor Shiroka alone in your room AGAIN. How many times must I remind you that Shiroka is to accompany you ALWAYS?"

"Damn mutt ran off before I woke up!" Kuma yelled into the floorboards. "I'm late for school all the time 'cause I have to chase her worthless furry ass all over the house!"

Miki ground her bare heel into his spine. "Nonsense! Shiroka-chan _loves_ you! She mopes about every time you abandon her, gazing sorrowfully out the window, anxiously awaiting your return." Shiroka whined theatrically.

"You shut up," Kuma growled, turning his head to glare at the dog. "Fuzzy-assed faker."

Shiro whimpered loudly, ears drooping, tail tucked between her legs, and made a point of cowering behind Miki. Giving her foster-son a light kick in the ribs, Miki rolled him over with her foot. "You're never going to live up to the clan name if you don't bond with her," she said disapprovingly.

"Don't want 'em, anyway," Kuma mumbled, one arm slung over his eyes. "Everyone knows I'm not a real Inuzuka." Che. Even faking the markings with greasepaint as a child hadn't helped.

"Well, you certainly won't be taken as one with that attitude," Miki snapped. He did not respond, and her face softened slightly, regretting the comment. "Here, make yourself useful and pick these up for dinner," she said, extracting a grocery list from her sleeve and letting it drop.

Without removing his arm from his across his eyes, Kuma snatched the slip of paper out of mid-air with his other hand. He waited until his foster-mother's footsteps receded into the kitchen before he sat up. "What're you smirking at?" he snapped, glowering at the dog. After giving him a long, contemptuous canine stare, Shiro raised her nose and tail high into the air and stalked away. Muttering dire threats against all of doggydom under his breath, Kuma rolled to his feet and banged back out the door.

Chopping up a bundle of leeks, Miki frowned slightly at the sound of her foster-son's exit. She'd lost count of how many doors they'd had to replace due to Kuma's habit of slamming into and out of rooms. The only times he moved quietly was when he tried to avoid catching her notice. Her gaze moved invariably to the small, plainly framed photograph of a serious-looking young man, the top corners of which were crossed by a broad black ribbon. Two sticks of incense were propped up in the small bowl of sand in front of the frame.

"Noisy little brat, isn't he," Miki said to the still air. "And a little stupid to boot. But even if I could have given you a child, Ryuta, I don't think we could have hoped for him to have a better heart than Kuma's." She nodded as her knife bit into the chopping board. "He has a good damn heart, and an airtight property insurance policy. What more could we have asked for in a son?" Her dog yipped in agreement even as Shiroka slanted her skeptical look.

Kaori held her breath as Old Man Shikamaru's eyes darted back and forth across the shougi board, his eyebrows furrowed in concentration. She smiled grimly when he brought his hands together, his fingers forming the shape of a square. _He's been having to do that more and more often,_ she thought, and allowed herself a few moments of self-satisfaction.

Finally, Shikamaru sat back and shook his head. "There is nothing I can do," he admitted, smiling slightly as he looked at her. Unsaid went the acknowledgement of her growing skill and Shikamaru's pride in his latest and brightest strategy student.

Letting herself breathe again, Kaoru grinned back at the old ninja and said calmly, "I know."

Kuma was arguing down the price of avocados in the open-air market when he caught a glimpse of purple braids. His head swiveled automatically, eyes tracking the hair until he saw a flash of its owner through a gap in the crowd down the street. Shoving the latest bid plus change into the vendor's hand, Kuma stuffed a couple avocados into his already bulging grocery bag and hurried to catch up. Kuma could recognize that head of hair from a mile away. He lost sight of her while struggling through the crowd, then spotted her again just before she turned down a different street.

He didn't know what he planned to do when he caught up with Samura Kaori; probably rile her up some more, see if he couldn't provoke her into a fight or something. She looked pretty hot when she got pissed off. Maybe he could startle her, pop out from behind a trash can or a lamp post and shake some of that stony composure. He was less than a block behind her when she ducked into an alley.

Slowing his pace, Kuma looked around; Kaori had led him into the shadiest part of downtown—at least, what passed for "shady" in Konoha. Gangs liked to hang out here, tagging the walls to mark ever-changing turf claims, picking their teeth with switchblades, trying to act badass. Still, sometimes they got out of hand, going on vandalism sprees and rolling wealthy-looking passersby. The delinquent products of negligent parents and boredom. Kuma had considered joining them when he was younger, but Miki had beaten that idea right out of his head. What was Kaori thinking, coming down here when it was getting dark? This was hardly the straight-and-narrow that the studious, by-the-book Samura girl was used to.

Then Kuma noticed the shadowy figure walking along the rooftops, obviously keeping pace with Kaori. Once he spotted that one, he could see the rest: seedy-looking characters eying her from darkened doorways, a couple appearing on the roofs on the opposite side of the first guy, running to get ahead. Each new player seemed to sport more tattoos, piercings, brands, and funky colors than the previous one. As Kuma watched, a few of the lurkers peeled away from the walls to fill in the alleyway behind the oblivious Kaori, toting switchblades, bats, and chains. _They're setting up an ambush!_ Lips peeling back from his teeth, Kuma jogged closer, bare feet silent against the flagstone street. Bending swiftly as he moved in, Kuma scooped up a more or less intact empty bottle and winging it at the closest roof-hopper as he straightened. He scored a direct hit, the bottle shattering against the guy's head, the roof-hopper tumbling out of sight. His friends jerked with alarm at the sound of breaking glass and hesitated. It was enough.

Picking up speed, Kuma leaped into the air, landing in the thick of the punks sneaking up on his classmate. He landed in a crouch, chucking his groceries up into a random goon's face, one leg lashing out as he pivoted on his other heel to sweep another gangbanger's legs out from under him. He shot up at an angle, headbutting yet another in the stomach, then turned and lifted his arm in time to block a downward chop at his head from a baseball bat. The wood splintered against his arm-weight; he grabbed hold of it and kneed its owner in the groin, jerking the bat from his loosened grasp. Whirling, he broke it the rest of the way through across a skinhead's shiny dome. Grabbing the top half as it fell, he hurled it toward one of the roof-hoppers, catching him in mid-leap. A chain whipped across his peripheral vision and wound itself around the arm he raised to block it; he yanked the punk holding it closer, ramming the splintered end of the bat into his face.

The chain still wrapped around his arm, he jerked back to avoid a wild swipe at his eyes from some asshole's knife, then caught the blade on a forward thrust through one of the chain's links. A sharp twist snapped the cheap steel as Kuma simultaneous brought the heel of his foot down hard on the guy's bent knee; he howled and fell forward as the kneecap shattered. Using his bent back as a springboard, Kuma launched himself across the air and delivered a punishing whirlwind kick at an onrushing gangbanger, feeling his jaw crunch satisfyingly against his foot, teeth flying in a spurt of blood. Taking another running start, he flew feet-forward toward yet another punk, both feet slamming into the kid's chest and throwing him back against the guy behind him.

A flash of silver caught his eye and he raised his arm again; a kukri glanced off his arm weight and sliced into the meat of his arm just above the elbow. Dark eyes moved to the kukri-wielder's face—a girl this time, her own eyes wild under a fringe of choppy blue-black bangs as she leaned more weight against the kukri. Though he could see the huge blade still lodged in his arm practically to the bone, he barely registered the pain. Anyone else would have chalked it off to shock, but Kuma knew from experience that it meant he was reaching berserker mode. Grinning toothily, he wrenched his arm free and grabbed the girl's knife wrist; bone crunched audibly as his grip tightened. She cried out, almost buckling, as he pried her wrist, kukri and all, away from his arm. Seizing her face with his other hand, he turned, dragging her along with him, bent elbow straightening as he went, driving the back of her skull toward the brick wall.

Suddenly Kaori was in front of him, her face a mask of cold fury. The sight of her brought him up short, and in that moment she slapped him open-handed across the face, putting all of her slight weight into it. He blinked.

"Inuzuka Kumamori, you let that girl go _right this minute_," she said through her teeth.

"…Huh?"

A bony guy with a neon green Mohawk and a screaming purple skull tattooed to one side of his shaved scalp was trying to pull Kaori out of Kuma's path. She waved him off impatiently. "Let. Her. Go," she grated, taking a step forward with each syllable until she was nose-to-nose with Kuma.

His eyes slid sideways, as if he had forgotten that he was still holding onto the girl gangbanger's face. "Oh. Right." His fingers relaxed, and she crumpled with a whimper; one of her punk friends gathered her up in his arms and drew her away. "Wait. What?" His face still stung from the slap. "What the hell did you hit me for?!" he flared.

"Why the hell were you beating on these kids?!" she shot back, not giving an inch. He looked around, bewildered. Other than a handful of baby bangers, most of punks around them had a good few years on both of them.

Kuma shook his head. "For such a smart girl, you really are dumb. They were totally setting up to take you down. I just saved your blind ass from a mugging!"

"It's just a game, you moron! We do it whenever I go home from Old Man Shikamaru's place; they set up different attacks each time to help me work on my combat skills!"

Kuma blinked again. "Huh?"

"We totally had a kick-ass ambush formulation, too," one of them muttered through a bloodied nose.

A short girl with green and pink dreadfalls piped up, "I thought up the roof stalkers, Kaori-chan! We even got rappelling gear like real ninja!" She pointed at the thin wire attached to her utility belt as she stood vertically against the wall. "Well, kind of, it's not as high-tech, 'course, but then it was—"

"The sewer thing was my idea," a hulking skinhead sporting chrome etchings on his bald pate interrupted.

Kaori's gaze shifted to the sewer lid, then to the grate in the gutter from which a pair of round eyes winked back. "You got kids down there?"

"Damn it, Shuya, you had to go and flap your big mouth!" the Mohawk kid snapped, punching the skinhead in the arm. "We coulda reused that one!"

"Sorry. I thought for sure she'd spotted it already," he mumbled.

"You mean… all this… is just practice?" Kuma asked faintly.

"Finally, the meathead gets it," Dreadfalls said, rolling her eyes. "Duh, it's practice!"

"What, did you think all of us were rolling this one unarmed girl for shits and giggles?" Mohawk demanded.

Kuma glared back. "Hey, that's right! You got all those bats and knives and shit and you were still going to attack her?"

"We left plenty of bottles and trash can lids and broken chairs and stuff lying around for Kaori-chan to use," Shuya rumbled.

"We can't expect to have our ideal weapons at hand when we undergo an attack, Kumamori," Kaori sighed. "Part of being a ninja is about being able to use the resources at hand. All right, everyone, um, practice is obviously cancelled for today. Thank you for your hard work and effort and I'm really sorry about… this." She jabbed a thumb back at Kuma.

"Kinda embarrassing how easily that one guy beat us up, innit?" someone muttered as they scraped their wounded off the street.

"Didja get a look at him, though? It's that freak the dog clan took in," someone else replied. "We didn't stand a chance against a monster like that."

Kuma hunched his shoulders. As if his ego hadn't taken a bad enough bruising already; now he had to bear the brunt of the same xenophobic swill that had haunted him all through his childhood. He could pretend he hadn't heard them, but it was common knowledge by now that he could hear through walls.

"You're cut," Kaori said suddenly, her eyes on his dripping arm. "Roll up your sleeve."

"It'll be fine," he muttered, trying not to look at it.

Grabbing his wrist, Kaori shoved his blood-drenched sleeve up past the wound. "Don't be an idiot; this is going to need stitches. Take the gauntlet off, it'll get in the way. Hideki!"

"Here," said the guy with the green Mohawk, appearing at her elbow with a roll of bandages and a dirty grocery bag that Kuma recognized as his. All the produce was probably squashed. "I'll hold onto your armguard for you."

Shrugging, Kuma undid the buckles and clasps and tossed his arm-weight over. Hideki's eyes went wide as he struggled to hold it up. "Holy shit, this thing weighs a ton! You're wearing two of these?"

"He's got 'em on his legs, too," Kaori said as she bandaged Kuma's arm. "His mom makes him wear them so he'll fight fair."

Hideki jerked his head back at the wounded being seen to by the unscathed members of their gang. "You call that fair?"

Kaori pulled the final knot tight. "That should staunch the bleeding for a little while, but you'd better get a real doctor to take care of it."

"Oi, Kaori," Kuma said gruffly to her bent head.

"Yes?"

"Wasn't this the other way around once?"

She stepped back and gazed coolly at him, then flashed him a brief, rare smile. Kuma felt his heart skip a few beats. "I certainly hope you don't expect me to carry you home," she said archly.


End file.
